Comments on: Decipher plans viral CCG launch, shared profits for fans

By: Mike Sugarbaker

Mike Sugarbaker — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:20:46 +0000

There are two separate levels, but one of them is designated for retailers and the like - they get 5% of profits from the people they convert and the people they convert, if I read correctly.

And yes, it is worth discussing the things that they’re getting right here: some sort of revenue-sharing program is a really interesting thing to add to the mix, although I think people would be more comfortable with an Amazon Associates model than this model. And they’re going direct to customers in a way that really cements the relationship, which is pretty neat.

Sadly… FightKlub. Yeah.

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:25:29 +0000

From what I can tell, it’s no joke. And it’s also not a true pyramid
scheme - there don’t appear to be any “levels”, so it doesn’t matter when
a person joins: it looks like you only profit from those people you
personally bring to the game.

For a company in such dire straits as Decipher seems to be, it sure is a
novel way to keep a larger share of profits. No distributors, little to no
advertising… Time will tell if it succeeds. They are putting a lot of
faith in their core players to spread the word, so success will ride on
good game mechanics. I imagine the game is getting a lot of testing.

By: Del

Del — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 07:31:16 +0000

Looks like a pyramid marketing idea to me. Worked for Avon tho so who would I be to be critical.

This could get a lot of people into design, eh?

By: Allan Sugarbaker

Allan Sugarbaker — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:35:02 +0000

Yeah, I doubt it’s a joke - far too much effort went into it.

I wasn’t sure if Reservoir Dogs was just thrown in as a mock-up example to get the imagination flowing, or an actual product we could expect. In all, this isn’t just a plan to lean on your community of fans, this is counting on the community to resurrect you in the marketplace and join your undead legion. Just a strange way to get back into game publishing.

Chris said:
I thought you could only post April Fool’s Jokes if you were relevant…

Owch.

By: misuba

misuba — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:49:20 +0000

I’m perversely fascinated by this. (And it went live yesterday, or before.) It’s like they rethought absolutely everything about their market except the one thing that matters.

Well, one and a half things: the licensing part is kind of questionable too. But if you’re going to sell direct to fans, and ask them to vote on which licensed content to use… why not just ask them to create prospective content on their own, and vote on that?

Or, if they’re supposedly coming your website anyway, why bother with a paper product at all except as a weird extra, like those action-figure printouts of people’s WoW characters?

I have to agree: bizarre.

By: Dave T. Game

Dave T. Game — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:56:33 +0000

That’s a LOT of work for an April’s Fools joke from a nearly-defunct company. I think it’s legit.

The only concrete license I was able to spot was Reservoir Dogs, which is on the single sample card.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:29:23 +0000

I thought you could only post April Fool’s Jokes if you were relevant…

By: Pookie

Pookie — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:29:23 +0000

If a joke, it is not even remotely funny and I doubt that few have really noticed.
If a real TCG, I have my doubts about any possible success. A flurry of interest initially, but in the long term it will probably go the way of similar games.

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:53:32 +0000

I’m going with April Fools Joke.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:03:29 +0000

Smells like failure.